The four candidates vying for three School Committee seats plan to ramp up campaign activities as they prepare for this week’s debate.

Incumbents Anne Blanchard and Paul Laurent and challengers Timothy Kelley and Thomas Campbell say they plan to place signs, launch websites and meet voters as the April 9 election draws closer.

Candidates will debate at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Morse Institute Library in a forum sponsored by the Natick Forever political action committee.

The campaign comes as the district develops a fiscal 2014 budget that administrators say is balanced but leaves unmet needs. School leaders are also faced with enrollment that has grown by 479 students in the past five years, a trend expected to continue.

"We have to continue to focus on improving and making our programs competitive while handling growth and it’s a really hard challenge," Blanchard said. "We can’t go backward."

Blanchard said she supports administrators’ recent efforts to look at a building project at Kennedy Middle School, but said it is important to ensure the district is providing enough teachers in addition to adequate buildings.

"The data points to serious ongoing overcrowding that’s going to continue at that (middle school) level," she said. "I’d like us to do more in terms of looking at capacity issues at the elementary level and student-teacher ratios at the high school."

Blanchard, who is seeking a third term, said the current budget does not solve the need for more teachers. School officials when budgeting need to look at all areas, including budget priorities, union negotiations and state aid. Fees should be similar to other districts, but they are not a solution to budget woes, she said.

Blanchard and Campbell said school officials need to communicate the district’s enrollment situation with residents.

"The School Committee is not able to formulate a long-term strategic response that will properly address these enrollment challenges ... and maintain a decent level of education without a community-wide approach," Campbell said.

Campbell said he supports submitting a statement of interest to the state School Building Authority to possibly put a Kennedy project on the authority’s radar screen. Campbell said some Kennedy students are attending classes in modular classrooms, which are not a long-term solution to overcrowding.

Campbell said the committee will – and should – present a balanced budget to Town Meeting, but it is difficult to sustain the quality of education with rising enrollment.

"Nobody wants to increase student fees," he said. "While it’s an option that has to be considered given the environment, it’s a difficult option to consider and it points to the need for a community-wide review."

Kelley, who ran unsuccessfully for School Committee last year, said he supports pursuing a Kennedy project, noting the school has poor air quality.

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"It’s outdated," he said. "I know it’s a burden on townspeople, but … it needs to be replaced."

He said the district should continue exploring other ways to address overcrowding such as leasing space, portable classrooms and seeing if space can be converted into classrooms.

"I think we need a little bit better planning when we build," Kelley said, noting schools should be designed to handle future growth.

Kelley said fee increases should not be considered. Administrators should look at whether needs can be met by making reductions in other areas of the budget, he said.

"It’s prudent for any district to look at the fee structure in comparison with surrounding towns to identify ways of alleviating some of the budgetary pressures. That’s just good financial planning." said Laurent, who was appointed to the committee in 2010 and elected by voters in 2011. "Nobody is interested in increasing taxes for the sake of that."

Laurent praised school administrators for regularly updating the board on enrollment numbers and working collaboratively with other town boards on budget and other challenges.

Superintendent Peter Sanchioni "is often looking into the distance and being prepared for a what I call a ‘No surprises environment.’ To me, that’s very important," Laurent said.

Laurent said Kennedy is the short-term need. In an ideal world the district could solve all capacity issues at once, but that is not financially feasible, so officials need to look at where there are pressure points, he said.

Brian Benson can be reached at 508-6236-3964 or bbenson@wickedlocal.com.